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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I feel that yet again, the social extroverts are advantaged in this new scenario.

College apps were probably the last bastion of selection based on achievement (and nebulous other activities) without a direct social component. It can give a leg up to intelligent kids who are shy in-person, but can express themselves well on paper. These are 17 year olds! They're allowed to be uncertain and lack confidence in their public persona! They have lots of growing to do.

If you insert a live video where kids need to talk to show off how mature they are... it will only select for that portion of the population who can act like that (regardless of whether or not they truly are like that).

So, this is not an improvement. Like selections based on extra-curriculars and sports, it's just another way of ignoring academic achievement, which should be the main criteria for university admissions. US colleges thinks they're holding a popularity contest. Universities should educate the brightest, not the most popular.

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Colleges do not value kids who sit in their dorm rooms all day without social contact. 
It's why at a young age you need to push kids to get out of that habit, if that is how they are so inclined. Society will not be kind to them.

I disagree with you. I think its an improvement. You get more socially well-adjusted kids, who end up engaging in all a university has to offer. There's more to life than a classroom. If you don't understand the priorities of American universities, then go elsewhere. Top universities are looking for the brightest. They are actually looking for the most talented, the rarest, the most likely to make an impact. It's not always the "brightest" as you put it.[/quote]

I entirely disagree. I don't think you can identify integrity, academic curiosity, a broad mind, from videos of teens interacting with each other. It's obviously going to descend into lowest common denominator issues. My daughter's friend loves to read Greek philosophers. Is she going to dare to broach that subject among her peer group, when she can so easily be taken for a try-hard? My son (in college already, thankfully) also has cerebral niche interests and would have presented as totally awkward in conversation at 17. Now at 20 he's a lot more mature. Should he have been rejected from his university jusy because of a set of social interactions? My teen daughter would find this exercise so cringe and fake. Because it is!

If you want to take the measure of a teen, improve the classic interview with adults affiliated to the university.

Oxford does it best: they have academic interviews based on the chosen topic of study, with professors who will be teaching that subject. In essence, the profs choose their cohort. That's the best way to select candidates, I think. But if US colleges insist on holistic applications, then they can conduct more general interviews. Make them mandatory, hire more admission officers.

This peer conversation thing is complete crap.[/quote]

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